Software, whether in the form of programs, data, or both, has become a valuable resource for individuals and enterprises. In some cases, such as for enterprises located worldwide, it is helpful to have such assets replicated so as to be available at a variety of global locations. Examples of such software assets include software applications and virtual machine images.
Often, such software assets may be present within a data center. A data center is a larger collection of servers with enormous computing and storage power. Such data centers are often multi-tenant in that the enterprise may store software resources at the data center even though the enterprise does not own or operate the data center. Such data centers may be located throughout the globe. Accordingly, in order to have more ready access to software assets, such software assets may be present on multiple data centers.
However, replicating large software assets from one data center to another does not come without cost. Bandwidth is used between the source and target data centers. Processing resources may also be used at both the source data center and the target data center.